Interviews
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Running Straight Into the Devastation: Reyna Grande Goes to War
Reyna Grande is the author of several books, including the bestselling memoir, The Distance Between Us, (Atria, 2012) and the sequel, A Dream Called Home, released in 2018. Her latest novel, A Ballad of Love and Glory is a sweeping historical saga…
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Candy from Strangers: A Conversation with Jennifer Egan
We can try to perform our inner lives, but we can’t actually reveal them. We can create a simulacrum, which is so much of what I see on social media, and that simulacrum is entertainment. It’s exciting because we all…
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The Subconscious Repository of Weird Things: A Conversation with Ananda Lima
Poetry allows me to say the thing without a million conjectures. It leaves a lot of space and allows words to resonate and connect without me having to take you there . . . because of the conventions of poetry,…
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Looking for Trouble: A Conversation with Maud Newton
Are these stories true? Did my great grandfather really kill someone with a hay hook? Was my other great grandfather really a communist?
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Doomscrolling in Novel Form: A Conversation with John Elizabeth Stintzi
You’ll really love this book if you have the opinion that reality is weird. And if you think, like me, that the fact that so many people believe that there’s even a steady thing that we could call reality is…
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Witches, Mushrooms, Collective Voices, and Catalan: A Conversation with Irene Solà and Mara Faye Lethem
Remember the little green dolls in Toy Story that live in a vending machine, the claw is their god and they go “The Claw!” and cower away? I imagined the mushrooms in the same way, except their claw is the…
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Solace in Writing About the End of the World: An Interview with Mike Meginnis
The most beautiful thing I can think of to do with one’s life is to write a novel, even as I feel really ambivalent about the utility of doing it, about the value to myself and to society and to…
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Make the Story Work, and the Politics Will Look After Itself: The Rumpus Interview with Tony Birch
It is easy to be awed by Tony Birch’s prolific body of work—his dynamic career ranging from firefighter to professor—his deep love of family and heritage, and his humility. He is a historian and climate change activist who outwardly observes…
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I Write to Make Myself Unrecognized: A Conversation with Shangyang Fang
In Buddhism, there is always an expression on this and that, and the yes and no of this and that. For example, the other side of the river is a metaphor of death, in contrast to this life, this side.…
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The Community Aspect of Poetry: A Conversation with H. Melt
I think poetry lends itself to community and getting to know people intimately. Poetry requires vulnerability.
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Reading Fiction As an Act of Resistance: A Conversation with Azar Nafisi
We need fiction because fiction does not polarize. Fiction is based on understanding over judgment.
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Catalyst Events and a Time for Poetry: An Interview with Charles Flowers
Consider: My coming out story has been told, but coming out is constantly changing and shifting and needs retelling, and each telling has value for a particular audience.